Burn Down the Night
by Pixel-0
Summary: Gen AU: John has been dead three months when he begins writing letters to his sons in his journal.


**Title: **Burn Down the Night

**Rating: **PG-13 for violence, gore, and general unpleasantries

**Category: **Gen AU fic

**Spoilers: **"Dead Man's Blood" and "Salvation"

**Warning: **Character death

**Author's Notes:** Interrupts the "Salvation" plotline after John learns that Caleb and Pastor Jim have been killed, but before he goes to meet Meg and is taken prisoner by the demons. Thanks to mellaithwen for all her help with this one.

**Disclaimer**: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the Warner Bros television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

* * *

Sam finds the entry first.

Wrapped in musty blankets, he's wearing pajamas and reading by flashlight so as to not wake Dean in the early morning darkness. Sam rereads the journal entry again, as if foolishly believing that a number or letter obscured in the darkness led him to the fear that now slithers beneath his skin. When he finally realizes that, yes, his first thought was correct, his heart flutters upward to land in his throat, and he reaches for Dean.

Sam grabs Dean's exposed wrist firmly, and his first tug is gentle. Dean stirs and grumbles before trying to roll away. Then, Sam yanks on Dean's arm again, only this time hard enough to cause him to lift his head. Dean mutters unintelligent words, and his own name spills from Sam's lips in a frantic flurry.

Before Dean can even push himself to seated position, Sam shoves their father's journal at him. "Here. Read," Sam says, and he twists the corner of his blanket tight while Dean blinks and tries to focus on the sentences in front of him.

Dean rubs the sleep out of his eyes with one hand as he skims the entry. After a moment, his hand drops to his lap with a defeated collapse, and his curse sounds like a choke of pain. His eyes, now wide and focused, look to Sam, and something greater than words passes in the silence between them.

An entry, written in their father's thick, capped handwriting, lies on the pages enclosed between worn leather. The entry is one that they've never seen before, and it wears the date of the day before.

It was written yesterday, and John Winchester died three months ago.

- - - - -

Dean sits on the bed with his head in his hands, while Sam paces the room in quick strides of frustration and fear. The possibilities of what this could mean bounce back and forth, ricocheting off the walls, but never landing to a definite point where they can catch a reason and say, Yes. Yes, this is it. Finally, Dean scratches his head and yawns too loudly, then rises to his feet and walks over to the table where the journal lies open.

"We've seen weirder," he says, as if this is the answer they have been looking for all this time. He rests his hands on the table and leans down to look at the entry again.

Sam snorts and gives a dismissive eye roll to indicate that such an excuse is not going to help them. "Y'know, I just can't believe he…he's _apologizing_."

Dean looks over his bare shoulder to see Sam standing behind him, and he narrows his eyebrows in confusion. Their dead father has left them a message in his journal, and Sam is upset about the meaning of the words, not that there are words that should not exist to begin with.

Before Dean can say anything in response, black letters begin to appear on the page as if someone is writing them with an invisible hand. In response to Sam's comment, the words read, _I figured it was better late than never—right, Sammy?_

When Dean points at the sentence, his fingertip is marked with a pinprick of ink from where he touched the dot of the question mark. Sam shakes his head in disbelief, and refuting whispers rise to his lips.

"Dad?" Dean asks, and he tries to keep the crack out of his voice. Maybe for Sam's sake. Maybe for his own.

_Yeah, Dean, _the ink writes back.

"Dad…" Dean thinks of all the things he wants to say and wishes he had said before the end. His hands curl into fists in front of his bare chest before falling back to his sides as he says hoarsely, "I'm sorry I didn't get there in time."

There is a pause before the words appear this time, as if John too, is remembering his death at the hands of the demon. The demon that killed his wife and was destroyed by his sons. Only his sons were too late to save him, and he was too late to save his wife, but the end came eventually.

_Don't apologize_, John finally writes. _You defeated it, and that's all I wanted. Don't apologize and don't blame yourself. You're better than that. _

Sam looks over at Dean, and his lips curve slightly in the barest flicker of a wry smile. Dean glances down at the words, and he has to hear his father's voice saying them before he can smile too.

- - - - -

Ever since Mary was taken from him, John had envisioned just one way for him to die. He decided that he would settle for nothing less than dying in battle against the demon that had shredded his life and love. Yet, on the day of his death, three months before his writing appeared in his journal again and on the night after he learned his friends had been viciously murdered, John received only half of his death wish.

While he died looking upon the demon as his final enemy, there was no valiant battle as he had hoped. Sam and Dean had been gone when John entered the shared motel room alone for what he planned to be a quick nap following the knowledge of Jim and Caleb's deaths. Yet, in the shadowed corners, the demon was waiting, and it ambushed him as soon as the door was closed.

The demon tore his body apart pitilessly from the outside. Then, when John cursed and staggered to keep upright—because, although he had no weapon, he was determined to die like a man on his feet—the demon gathered itself into a black cloud and filled his mouth and throat. The horrific force slashed his innards open until blood gushed from his ears and around his eyes and until he vomited black chunks onto the carpet. Clumsily, he crawled on his hands and knees as his organs were reduced to scrambled liquids.

Before he closed his eyes and accepted his death, Sam and Dean entered the room. They entered only minutes too late. Dean immediately rushed to their dying father and gathered John's broken body in his arms as the demon slithered back into the air. When the monster finally stood before them all and turned its yellow eyes in their direction, it pulled its lips back into an ugly sneer and cursed them. Cursed the air they breathed and the life they had.

Sam did not hesitate as a lesser man might have, and unwavering, he raised the Colt. He fired only once, and his aim was true. The demon did not scream when the bullet ripped through its flesh; it only gasped and choked before dissolving away into dark pieces of death.

While Dean held his father on the floor, Sam used his thumbs to wipe the blood out of John's eyes long enough for him to see his sons before he died. Dean's hands were warm and strong against his shoulders, and Dean was whispering something John could not understand. Sam bit his lower lip to fight back the tears welling in his eyes and cupped his father's cheek to support his drooping head.

And right before his world went black and he slipped away, John looked up at his boys, his brave boys who had ended the battle, and he thought, _Not what I had wanted it to be, but it's not a bad way to go either._

- - - - -

Days after John writes to his sons, Pastor Jim and Caleb's messages arrive. Jim with his religious blessings and paternal warnings, and Caleb with curses against the blonde bitch who killed him and advice on how to skin the Jersey Devil. Caleb occasionally misspells words or scrawls so messily that his handwriting is unreadable. Jim keeps his words neat and small, precise in their form and use.

Sam wants to ask Jim what the other side is like for him, being a holy man and all. Dean says it's a stupid question because if Jim really had moved on, he wouldn't be able to communicate with them.

As Jim listens to the boys arguing, he writes back, _I only wish I knew the answer. But I don't. I don't know what's happened or what's going to happen._

_I think something…_someone_ made a mistake. This isn't how it's supposed to be. There's something wrong. I just don't know how wrong yet._

- - - - -

John returns, and the pages smell of his aftershave and are filled with his warnings. He knows why he has returned, he writes to his sons. He knows.

Sam presses for the answer that could perhaps return things to the way they should be when the order of life and death make sense.

When he died, John writes, his blood must have fallen onto the journal. Since that part of him was not burned with his body, his spirit is still able to live on in a separate world. But—

Then he stops, and there is a dot of ink where he paused before beginning the next word. Dean leans forward and asks, "But? But what? Dad?"

_But the demon was in me when this happened. So, it was in my blood, and if I'm alive here, then it too, must live on. Because the Colt didn't destroy that blood, it's still alive as much as I am._

After John has left them again, Sam and Dean pace the room. The tension in the air is electric and thick. What they do not say seems to suffocate and press against their chests until they feel they are going to collapse under its weight. Finally, Sam says they should burn the journal, and Dean argues against him.

"This is Dad," Dean spits. His voice is ragged, and he smells their father's flesh in the air as he did three months ago when he stood above a crude grave and watched the smoke rise into the midnight sky. "We burn the journal, we lose Dad."

"It's the only way to get rid of the demon."

"No." Dean shakes his head and looks away from the journal. The world outside the window is black and unforgiving. "No, I burned Dad once. I won't do it again."

Sam lifts his head, and he inhales sharply as he chooses his words. His cheek twitches when he says in a clipped undertone, "We have to do what's best for everybody. Dad's dead. I've accepted it. Maybe you should, too."

Dean flinches before he snaps around and slams Sam against the wall. From the sheer force of his brother's anger, Sam's head whips back and hits the wall with a painful beat. As Dean looks up, his face is blotchy, and Sam thinks Dean's going to cry before he growls in the back of his throat, "Don't you touch him, Sammy. Don't you dare. Burn that, and I'll never forgive you."

"It's another battle beginning if we don't. We thought we won, but we didn't—"

"I'm willing to take a chance." Then Dean steps away, and he turns his back to Sam. When he whispers, "I can't lose Dad again," Sam wonders if he was meant to hear such words.

- - - - -

When their mother's entry appears, the pages are dotted with gardening soil, and Dean, who is standing next to Sam's chair, has to explain how much she loved to spend time outdoors. The journal smells of her perfume and chocolate chip cookies. Her handwriting is tight, cursive calligraphy that flows like her daily presence in her sons' lives.

Her entry is a love letter to them. To all that they've become as men and all that they were as children. She doesn't apologize for leaving them or any pain she has caused, but there is no need for such saddening words. The tender syllables of compassion and love are enough, and they could ask for nothing greater.

Dean rests his finger against her own muddy fingerprint on the pages, and he watches as his touch envelops her own. His eyes fill with tears when he finishes reading, and her voice, that sweet feminine voice, sings through his mind. He squeezes Sam's shoulder as if just to reassure himself that there is still this much of their family left.

While Dean whispers, "I've missed you, Mom," Sam wishes he could remember his own mother enough to cry the tears Dean is fighting back. But, Sam's infant mind does not know their mother, and he tries not to look as Dean's grieving child rises to the surface.

The flowered ink writes, _I know, honey. I've missed you both, too. But, I'm right here. I always have been, and I always will be._

And that right there is enough for both of her sons.

- - - - -

John's words begin to bring a mix of anger and hope. The pages are never promising, but they are still his words despite what they say. For Dean, it means his father, and for Sam, it means the answers they need to end this battle once and for all.

_It's taking the people in the journal, _John writes,and there is no need to ask what "it" is anymore_. If I wrote about somebody, the demon somehow finds them. It's like it's taking them its prisoner, but I don't know how._

"Do they know it?" Dean asks. "Can't they fight it?"

_I don't know think they do know. I think they're somehow awakened long enough to talk to you before they disappear completely. There's some other place, maybe whatever afterlife they wanted for themselves, that they come from before the demon takes them away._

"Then we should burn the journal," Sam suggests. He pretends not to notice the way Dean twitches at the words.

_No, don't. I don't know if everyone else is somehow bound to the journal because of me. If the journal is burned, there may be no way to save them from the demon. They came from wherever they were through the journal, and they may need the journal to go back through again. I don't know if I can save them without the journal. _

Sam glances over to Dean, who remains staring at the freshly written sentences as if studying them long enough will bring them the answer they need. Yet, John writes again, _I'm going after it. If I don't stop it, it will just keep taking the ones we love._

"What can we do? Let us help," Sam says, and Dean bows his head silently in pain.

_There's nothing you can do. It can't take a physical form for you fight, so I have to do this alone._

"Then it can't harm us?"

_I don't know. I wish I did. All I can tell you is to stay safe. Stay alive._

- - - - -

Jess comes on the day of purple ink and coffee stains. Her message is so short that even Dean feels Sam's pain at how little she has given and how much more Sam has wanted—wants—from her.

Dean reads the casually looped words again, and Sam pinches the bridge of his nose as he remembers how she drank her coffee—milk and extra sugar—and how, when the end came, her eulogy sounded as if it were written about a different person. He thinks of her until he feels as if he is going to burst, and he can stand it no longer. His gestures are uncontrolled when he pushes himself away from the table and stumbles out the door.

Dean finds him later that night as the June bugs lie on their stomachs in the parking lot with their glossy backs shining under the fluorescent light. Sam's eyes are red rimmed and his voice raw with pain. But, Dean wraps his arm around Sam's shoulders and walks him back to the motel room where they eat warm take-out food and watch cheap eighties flicks.

Dean doesn't ask, and Sam doesn't tell.

Once again, Sam is unable to save Jessica from the demon. He hates himself for not being there when she died, and he hates himself for not being there when she is taken prisoner. More than anything, he hates himself for the words she has written.

The journal sits on the other side of their room, closed, but her message not forgotten. Jess' too short message that read, _I think I knew all along_.

- - - - -

Sam is out of the room when Dean opens the journal a week later to see unfamiliar handwriting. Once he realizes who it belongs to, he has to grab the table to keep himself from falling to his knees; his knuckles turn white against the dark wood. The handwriting is charcoal black and smeared forward at a harsh angle. Something pounds hard in his chest, and he has to close his eyes for a moment to stop the room from spinning.

_Hello, Dean, _the demon has written. _Just wanted to tell you to watch your back. Better make sure Sam's safe, too. Daddy can't help you now._

Dean fingers the lighter in his pocket, and with his father's words still reverberating in his head, he cannot allow himself to burn the pages to black ash. Instead, he slams the journal shut, and he squeezes his hands into tight, sweaty fists until they quit shaking. It isn't until he leaves the room to find Sam, and the fresh air curls down the side of his face that he realizes that he stopped breathing.

He knows that when he finds Sam, he will be unable to tell him what he saw, as if speaking the demon's words will turn them to macabre reality. All he can do now is wait and hope. Wait and hope that he will be there to kill it when it comes for Sam.

- - - - -

The demon attacks two days later.

The room is still black, and Dean's mouth tastes of bitter alcohol when he awakens to the sound of choking. He fumbles in the darkness before his hand connects with the light switch to see Sam.

Sam's face is strained, and his eyes flutter underneath their closed lids. Yet, blood leaks from the corner of his mouth, and he sputters and gags. Against the bed, his hand flops spasmodically like a dying fish.

The demon has come for them in the only way it can—through their dreams—and it has started with Sam.

Dean darts to the bed and pulls Sam to a seated position. He slaps Sam's face and shouts his name so loudly and so frantically he thinks he must wake the neighbors. Yet, he yells and pleads until Sam's eyes open. They're bleary and unfocused, but they're open, and that is what matters. When Sam says Dean's name, Dean is convinced he has never been so happy to hear his brother's voice.

"Dean, I saw it. It talked to me." Sam's shoulders tremble beneath Dean's fingers, and he coughs up the lingering blood. He tries to wipe it off his lips, but Dean stops him and uses the corner of the blanket to dab Sam's mouth. Then Sam continues, "Oh God, it says it's going to kill us, Dean, it's going to kill us both, and we can't stop it."

- - - - -

Alone in the car, Dean opens the journal and pleads to the blank pages for help.

"We can't stay awake forever, Dad," he says, and his voice is sore from the fear of losing Sam. "What are we supposed to do? Take _turns_ watching each other _sleep_? It's too risky. Just…Dad, please…"

He looks down in vain hopes of finding a message from his father with words of advice on how to defeat the demon or words of safety that the battle is over.

But, the pages remain empty, and suddenly, Dean feels more helpless than he ever has.

- - - - -

When Dean goes to use the bathroom on a cloudy afternoon, he comes back into the room to see Sam convulsing on the bed. Blood gushes out of Sam as the demon ravages his body mercilessly.

Dean screams Sam's name, and the bed sheets turn from pale white to dark crimson as they are stained with blood. When Dean begins to grab Sam, his hand slips on the wet cloth, and his palm is smeared with his brother's blood.

Just as he reaches Sam, there is an explosion of bright light from behind him, and Dean instinctively raises his hand to shield his eyes. When he finally lowers his hand, he sees that his father's journal is burning on the table. The flames touch nothing else, only curling the precious pages that include years of research and personal memories into ashy, black tissues. Wisps of smoke creep around the edges of the aged leather in small tuffs.

Dean holds Sam tightly and pulls him close to hear him breathe and to feel his heart beat. Sam's head bobs loosely on his neck, and Dean whispers words he thinks to be comforting. Only later will he recognize them as coming from his mother's letter in the journal.

With Sam in his arms, Dean turns to stare at the burning journal long enough to think he sees the demon's yellow eyes peering at him through the flames. Then, a gunshot cracks from a world beyond the one Dean sees, and his father's voice yells something angry and triumphant. Chains clank, and John Winchester gives a whooping war cry, and there is the sound of a woman crying in happiness. Dean does not need to hear her voice again to know it is his mother.

Sam awakens, and Dean sees the flames of safety reflecting in his eyes. Sam shudders and takes a sharp breath in. He wraps his fingers around the corners of Dean's sleeve, and Dean whispers, "It's going to be okay, Sammy…it's going to be okay," and he knows that it will be.

He smells the smoke in the air and hears the crackle of the flames, but he knows that this time, this first time, the fire will not destroy his life and take his loved ones any longer. His father has destroyed the demon, and at long last, their lives are saved through the fire.

_End_


End file.
